2 posts tagged “palestrina”
Oh, the musical possibilities. This is not going to be a one video post. I suspect I may come back and add to it throughout the day....
First, the Gloria. The Gloria, a hymn of praise which occurs in some form in most Christian services, is conspicuously absent from the Mass throughout Lent. Since Lent is a period of somberness and restraint (thus the quiet music, the deep violet vestments and altar cloths, etc) a hymn like this would be out of place. On Easter, which is the greatest feast of the Church, the Gloria rings out in full magnificence:
This is from one of Palestrina's better-known Masses, Missa Papae Marcelli.
Not liturgical, perhaps, but how appropriate!
I will be singing this later today, sans organ. Organs aren't supposed to be used in chant, but my only other option on Youtube was those French monks who, bless their hearts, intone through their noses. This is from Mass VIII, also known as Missa de Angelis.
And, well, because it is from the Passion section of the Messiah...and because I like it at this time of year...and just for the heck of it...
(turn up your speakers)
(a lot)
(I know it's overperformed. Hush!)
gotta love the trumpets...
He is risen!
May His joy and the peace which passes all understanding be with all of you today and always.
just turn up the sound, sit back (or lie down), and listen to the divine sounds of the Suspicious Cheese Lords. That is not a typo. Google them if you don't believe me.
The text is from a Psalm: "As the hart (deer) longs for the clear streams, so my heart longs for you, O Lord." (This is, of course, sung in Latin: Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te Deus.)
St. Thomas Aquinas had many excellent ideas that were waaaaay before his 13th-century-time. Two come to mind when I listen to this. One is that there is a God-shaped void within each human spirit that can only be filled by the Divine. The other is that all that is good is, by definition, of God because God is perfect goodness, and nothing not of God can be good. Ergo, while he would say that the Catholic religion is the correct set of beliefs, he also said that anyone who genuinely believed in something other than that (yes, including the good pagan, the heretic, the atheist, et all) believed in Christ because the good within the other person's religion/heresy/set of beliefs/ethics was Divine; ie, it all came back to the same source, which was/is God.
This is not a concept that very many religions agree with. Reason #497 I'm Catholic...
Theology aside, I think most would agree that this sort of sound is sublime and sacred and gorgeous and uplifting in every sense of the word.
